Tag Archives: cover design

The second book proof arrived today. The cover is a bit bright in certain spots, and you still can’t see the mage’s right hand, but the overall image brightness and level of detail is a lot better. I could fuss with this forever and still not be 100% satisfied… or could I? lol

The matte cover doesn’t stay flat once you start reading the book. The curl is pretty bad on the first proof – both the front and the back. So face up or down, it’s like.. ugh! I’ll try putting it under a stack of books and see what happens.

I got my first print copy proof from Createspace in less than a week. I was pretty impressed with how fast it got here, but not with the book itself.

As expected, based on other author posts online, the cover image was much darker than the computer image. Since this is my first Createspace cover, I needed to see it printed before adjusting it. I upped the brightness by 60 ticks and I’m hoping it’s going to improve the image without washing it out and losing detail.

I placed the book’s title too close to the top edge, and my name too close to the bottom and side edges. I fixed the title by using Photoshop’s Edit->Transform->Scale, and my name by changing the font size and repositioning the text higher up from the bottom.

Inside the book, I thought that setting the inside margin to .75” was going to be sufficient, but it looks like I need a bit more room. If I leave it as is, the text closest to the seam on the curved page curves more inward than I would like. I think adding .25” is going to fix it.

If you don’t know who Joel Friedlander – aka The Book Designer is, stop what you’re doing right now and go to his website. If you do know who he is, did you know you can hire him, even if just for a 30-minute phone/Skype consult?

I’m engaging Joel to get some feedback and suggestions on my cover’s font type, font color, and text placement, as well as the promotional copy that’s going up on Amazon and the back cover.

While I’m “pretty good” at these things, he’s the expert. $175 for a 30-minute consult is a bargain. To take my ideas to the next level, and make it look like a professional designed and wrote it, priceless.